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20 July, 2018



✔︎ Report: “Putin proposed eastern Ukraine vote to Trump in Helsinki.”


✔︎ Lots of news about the Helsinki Summit. Some news items are sprinkled throughtout the newsletter. Most of them are toward the end under the Russia category. 


✔︎ Ilves: I would have been impeached if I behaved like Trump at summit.
- The Hill


✔︎ Helsinki News Conference Transcript
(Washington Post - 16. July)

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- On-line version:

- 2014-2018 Archive:



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Friday 20. July 
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✔︎ Report: Putin proposed eastern Ukraine vote to Trump in Helsinki 
(The Guardian)
"The Russian president spoke about the proposal at a behind-closed-doors meeting with ambassadors and diplomats at the foreign ministry in Moscow on Thursday …"



✔︎ “No Way to Run a Superpower”: Trump-Putin Summit and the Death of American Foreign Policy
by  Susan B. Glasser
(The New Yorker)
“The real scandal of Helsinki may be only just emerging.”
—
"On Thursday, Putin gave a public address to Russian diplomats in which he claimed that specific “useful agreements” were reached with Trump in their one-on-one meeting at the summit, a private meeting that Trump himself insisted on. Putin’s announcement came a day after his Ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, said that Trump had made “important verbal agreements” with Putin on arms control and other matters. The Russians, Antonov said, were ready to get moving on implementing them. … Days after the Helsinki summit, Trump’s advisers have offered no information—literally zero—about any such agreements. His own government apparently remains unaware of any deals that Trump made with Putin, or any plans for a second meeting …”
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"Unlike Putin, Trump did not brief his own diplomats on the Helsinki meeting. The American Secretary of State, national-security adviser, and Ambassador to Moscow, who attended the lunch after Trump and Putin’s private session, have been publicly silent on the substance of the meetings, leaving it to the Russians, for now, to make claims about what was actually said and done behind closed doors between the two Presidents."

"Putin said to agree to let Trump mull plan before going public."

"The Senate voted 98-0 to oppose giving Russia access to U.S. officials like former Ambassador Michael McFaul.”



- Putin routinely steps over NATO’s red lines
(Politico-Europe)
"The deployment of NATO forces was a thoroughly considered decision, to signal to Putin that future aggressive behavior will bear a great cost.”
—
"The EU-U.S. sanctions are about the same thing. Therefore, NATO’s deployment and increased exercise regime are not just about stopping a Russian attack in the Baltics or Poland - highly unlikely although not entirely impossible based on Putin’s unpredictable, aggressive behaviour - but about drawing a thick red line behind 2014."



- FSB vahistas Kaliningradis riigireetmises kahtlustatuna Balti riikide uurija Antonina Zimina
(Delfi | ERR)
"Kaliningradi elanik Antonina Zimina, kes on tuntud Balti kultuurisuhete ja ühiskonna uurijana, vahistati Föderaalse Julgeolekuteenistuse (FSB) nõudmisel ning viibib hetkel Moskvas Lefortovo vanglas üksikkongis. Noort naist kahtlustatakse riigireetmises."
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- Why a nearly 30-year-old list of names is roiling modern Latvia
(Christian Science Monitor)
“… the three former occupied Baltic states are still agonizing over the legacy of their harrowing, respective Soviet times. In the case of Latvia, dealing with that legacy is particularly controversial because of its physical nature: a catalog of 4,500 people who served as agents and contacts for the KGB during the 1980s. Ever since it was left behind in 1991 when the Soviets evacuated, as the Latvians were taking back their independence, politicians have wrestled with the question of whether the list should be made public.”
—
"A core concern for many here is what happens after the list is finally published. Latvians got an idea of what may be in store in December 2016, when a celebrated poet confessed to having worked for the tormentors of the Corner House. “I was a KGB agent,” said Jānis Rokpelnis, revealing that his job was to report on the mood of civil society groups. “I have a feeling that I am a murderer and that I carry the corpse inside me. I have killed my life, myself, and my honesty."
--
"Mr. Rokpelnis’s confession astounded his countrymen. Some praised him for his forthrightness. Others branded him a traitor. What would happen if and when the 4,500 contacts on the fateful list are compelled to explain what they did – or did not do – for the still hated KGB?"



- Multi-National Division North, What Does It Mean?
(RPRI | Baltic Times | Defense News)
"The most notable product of the (NATO) summit for the Baltic states was the letter of intent to create Multi-National Division North (MND North), a division-level headquarters led by the framework nations of Latvia, Estonia, and Denmark, to be co-located at Ādaži, just northeast of Riga, and at Karup in Denmark."
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Thursday 19. July 
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✔︎ Interview: Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
(CNN video)
“Putin is smart. He is a former KGB agent. He always took notes. He is tough and smart, and frankly has played a weak hand very well, because he’s got help from some people in the United States … President Trump has been a gift in terms of following out what I think is Putin’s plan to separate us from our allies and make it more difficult for America to be the leader of the free world."



- Putin nimetas kohtumist Trumpiga edukaks
(ERR)
"Kõik Venemaa majandusprojektid Euroopas, seal hulgas Nord Stream-2 on eranditult ärilised, neil ei ole poliitilist tagamõtet.”
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"Putin: Ukraina ja Gruusia NATO-sse kaasamine on vastutustundetu.”
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"Putin lubas võrdväärset vastust NATO baasidele Vene piiride lähedal.”
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"Putin: START-3 pikendamise läbirääkimisi tuleb viivitamatult jätkata."

- Trumpi sõnul ootab ta juba teist kohtumist Putiniga
(ERR)



- The Real Lesson From the Helsinki Summit
by Michael McFaul
(Foreign Affairs)
"The controversy surrounding the press conference is more than understandable, but it should not overshadow another, perhaps more consequential, source of U.S. weakness on display in Helsinki. In the face of a growing Russian threat to the interests of the United States at home and around the globe, Washington still lacks anything resembling a grand strategy to meet it. Trump’s Helsinki performance showed the world that a year and a half into his administration, he has yet even to start crafting an approach. Unless that changes ... U.S. interests will be further compromised and Putin will be further emboldened."

"A Grand Strategy for Confronting Putin.”



- Putin Interfered: Trump Has Muddied the Clear Message From the Start 
(New York Times)
"Two weeks before his inauguration, Donald J. Trump was shown highly classified intelligence indicating that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had personally ordered complex cyberattacks to sway the 2016 American election."
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"The evidence included texts and emails from Russian military officers and information gleaned from a top-secret source close to Mr. Putin, who had described to the C.I.A. how the Kremlin decided to execute its campaign of hacking and disinformation."
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"Mr. Trump sounded grudgingly convinced, according to several people who attended the intelligence briefing. But ever since, Mr. Trump has tried to cloud the very clear findings that he received on Jan. 6, 2017, which his own intelligence leaders have unanimously endorsed."



- Arvamus: Loobume vaikimisvandest julgeolekupoliitikas
Joosep Värk
(Postimees)
"Ajakirjanikuna olen saanud vihjeid, et mitme julgeolekuga seotud hankega on ropult riigi raha raisatud."


- NATO Fearful as Trump Flip-Flops Like a Fat Goldfish On The Floor
(The Daily Beast)
"At a press conference with Baltic leaders in April, Trump was asked by an Estonian journalist, “How are you going to deal with President Vladimir Putin? Is he... as your enemy or as someone you can have dialogue with?” Trump’s reply reiterated a couple of times was, “Nobody has been tougher on Russia than I have.” But this was said amid a muddle of remarks about energy supplies and accusations that other NATO members were not really so firm in dealing with Moscow."



- Sweden battles wildfires from Arctic Circle to Baltic Sea
(multiple sources)
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Map: Radio Sweden

- Northern Europe’s farmers struggle to weather extreme drought
(Politico-Europe)

"Estonia not planning on declaring drought emergency.”



- EU’s Schengen: How free movement, a founding principle of the E.U., became less free
(Washington Post)
"The tightening of borders comes as a result of fears here about migration from North Africa and the Middle East. Even though the migrant crisis has largely been pushed outside the E.U., and the number of new arrivals has fallen to where it was before a historic influx in 2015, a cascade of nationalist anger has toppled governments from Rome to Vienna to Warsaw. Where nationalists have not won power, their influence has moved centrist governments to the right. That has been the case in France and, most recently, Germany. Chancellor Angela Merkel this month conceded to expanded border controls along the German-Austrian border to prevent the breakup of her governing coalition."



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Wednesday 18. July 
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- Ukraine: The Elephant in the Room at Helsinki
(Window on Eurasia)
"By not raising Ukraine, Trump in fact made it clear that he personally at least wants to overlook Russian aggression there in the name of some grand bargain elsewhere. Putin could not be more pleased because that means Trump implicitly raised Ukraine by not talking about it."

"Moscow Now Views Sea of Azov like Occupied Crimea - as Exclusively Its Own."

"The Annexation Of The Sea of Azov”

- Ukraine Is Ground Zero for the Crisis Between Russia and the West
(The Atlantic)
“Many Ukrainians don’t know whether this White House will save or doom them."

- Ukraine In Crisis
(RFERL)

- Ukraine's Promising Path to Reform
(Foreign Affairs)



- Europe and Asia Move to Bolster Global Systems
(New York Times)
"After months of stunned indecision, they have undertaken a flurry of efforts intended to preserve the rules-based order the United States created after World War II and championed ever since. The most obvious example came on Monday, the same day a stunned world watched Mr. Trump praise President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia as a competitor after having dismissed Europe as an economic “foe.” A few thousand miles away, in Beijing, the leaders of the European Union and China held a long-scheduled meeting of their own."
--
"After months of denial, anger, bargaining and depression, Europe and other parts of the world have accepted that Mr. Trump and his mission of disruption are not going away."



- The United States Should Be More Like Estonia
(Esquire)
“… you do not mess with Estonians, tovarich."



- 'Baltic flounder': New fish species discovered in the Baltic Sea
(Yle)
“… the new species is more abundant in the Gulf of Finland that the European flounder, which is largely found in the central and southern Baltic Sea."



- Interview: US General Ben Hodges
(Deutsche Welle)
"DW: What did you make of President Vladimir Putin's meeting with his US counterpart Donald Trump in Helsinki?”
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"Hodges: I'm reluctant to say anything is a disaster so immediately after it happened. It's just going to take a little bit of time for things to filter out. Certainly all the reports I've seen would indicate that nobody was happy with it except the Russians. I think, on the plus side, at least there have been no announcements of something like: You can do what you want with Ukraine or Georgia. There's no indication that this was like in the 18th century, when great powers traded away space to each other. I think there's a little bit of a sigh of relief that way."



- U.S. Officials 'at a ******* Loss' Over Latest Russia Sellout
(The Daily Beast)



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Tuesday 17. July 
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- Euroopa Liit ja Jaapan allkirjastasid vabakaubanduslepingu
(ERR)
"Euroopa Liit ja Jaapan allkirjastasid teisipäeval tähtsa vabakaubanduslepingu ajal, kui USA ja Hiina vahel on puhkemas kaubandussõda. Lepingu allkirjastasid Tokyos Euroopa Liidu Ülemkogu eesistuja Donald Tusk, Euroopa Komisjoni president Jean-Claude Juncker ja Jaapani peaminister Shinzo Abe. Tegemist on EL-i ajaloo kõige mahukama vabakaubanduslepinguga, millega luuakse ligi kolmandikku maailma SKP-st hõlmav vabakaubandusala."

- Japan-EU trade deal 'light in darkness' amid Trump's protectionism
(The Guardian)
"Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, and EU leaders Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker sought to establish themselves as the flag-bearers of the free world, in response to Donald Trump’s show of apparent solidarity with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on Monday.”
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"Coming just 24 hours after Trump backed the Russian president over his own intelligence services at a summit in the Finnish capital, Tusk pointedly highlighted the continued support of Japan and the EU for the territorial integrity of Ukraine, whose Crimean peninsula was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014."



- Estonian dailies relieved nothing too unhinged arose from Helsinki Summit
(ERR)
"The headlines of the three biggest Estonian dailies all agree that the meeting between the leaders of the US and Russia, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, in Helsinki, Finland yesterday, whilst being a resounding victory for Putin, did not yield anything particularly unexpected or unpleasant."

- Putin Jet Trespassed in NATO Airspace on Way to Summit, Estonia Says
(New York Times | The Hill)
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- Putin rikkus Helsingisse Trumpiga kohtuma sõites Eesti õhuruumi
(Delfi)
"Kaitseväe peastaap vahendab, et eile lõuna ajal rikkusid tunniajase vahega Vaindloo saare piirkonnas kaks Venemaa riikliku lennukit loata Eesti õhuruumi. Lennukid viibisid Eesti õhuruumis vähem kui minuti. Nende transponderid olid sisse lülitatud, kuid lennuplaane ei olnud esitatud. Lennukitel ei olnud kontakti Eesti lennuliiklusteenindusega."



- Kas Putini keel vääratas Krimmi referendumist rääkides?
(ERR)
"Näiteks on tähelepanelikumalt pressikonverentsi jälginud ajakirjanikud toonud esile selle, et Venemaa president Vladimir Putin kasutas Krimmi teemast rääkides lauset "Me korraldasime referendumi lähtudes rangelt ÜRO põhihartast ja rahvusvahelisest õigusest."



- Finnish President is tight-lipped about one-on-one talks with Putin, Trump
(Helsinki Times)
“… talking points included the global significance of Europe and the increase in military exercise activity in the Baltic Sea – both of which, he pointed out, are issues that were reportedly not addressed in the bilateral talks between Putin and Trump."
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Monday 16. July
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Lisa Benson - Townhall dot com 16. July

- The Summit Putin Has Dreamed of for 18 Years
(New York Times)
"President Vladimir V. Putin did not get President Trump to endorse his seizure of Crimea, lift sanctions, halt a new arms race that Moscow can ill afford or cut a deal on any of the other issues that have so poisoned relations between Russia and the United States. But Mr. Putin did get what he needed most from the meeting in Helsinki: a statement by President Trump that, whatever America’s intelligence community might say about meddling by Moscow in the 2016 election — and whatever the damage caused by Russian actions in Ukraine — Mr. Putin is welcome back in the club of global leaders."

- Helsinki News Conference Transcript
(Washington Post)

"Ilves: 'I would have been impeached' if I behaved like Trump at summit"

"Ex-CIA Director: ‘Nothing Short of Treasonous’" 

- Sen. John McCain: “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.” 

“CNN anchor: Trump's performance "disgraceful.”

"CNN correspondent: Trump-Putin meeting should be called 'surrender summit’"

"If Putin wanted a U.S. president to do his bidding, it would look exactly like this.”



- Three observations by former senior CIA officer
by Rolf Mowatt-Larssen
(Just Security Org)
"If there is a silver lining in this disastrous trip, surely NATO, as well as leaders in Germany and the United Kingdom, must now realize that they cannot trust what the US President says, appears to do, or promises. This lesson will be useful for our allies in forging a more independent pathway moving forward, until this American nightmare is over."

- The CIA Had a Rule Against Meeting the KGB Alone. Trump Was Reckless to Ignore It With Putin
(The Intercept)
“… no one from the CIA could meet the KGB alone. That guaranteed that no American could hand over secrets to the KGB without at least one other American knowing about it; it also insured that no American would come under unfair suspicion of being a KGB spy simply by meeting with the Russians alone."

- Trump-Putin Summit: Finland Nervous About History Repeating Itself
(Time)
"On a July day in 1807, the French Emperor Napoleon and the Russian Czar Alexander I, who were then the world’s most powerful leaders, met on a raft in the middle of a river that flowed between their dominions. They had long admired each other as the leading strongmen of their age, and after hours of conversation over dinner they agreed on the outlines of a secret deal to carve up Europe between them. Finland, which had previously been a part of Sweden, wound up as a possession of the Czar.”
—
“So we don’t want to see such deals anymore,” (minister of defense Jussi) Niinisto says. “We are very worried about the great power politics coming back. What we want is an international rules-based order.”

- Opinion: Trump sold out Ukraine for a photo op and a football
by Oleksandr Savchenko
(Politico)
"In the preliminary on-camera meeting, Trump — the booming, coiffured leader of the free world — did not even mention Ukraine, even though it is a critical issue in relations between Russia and the West and the reason for sanctions against the regime in Moscow. Instead, he cozied up to a sly and ruthless dictator, whose proxy forces were killing Ukrainians even as he hosted the World Cup, saying he hopes they “end up having an extraordinary relationship.” The damage on the surface may not have been as great as some had feared — but the ambiguous signal the meeting sends is troubling.”

- Putin makes play for Europe
(Politico-Europe)
"Putin has positioned himself to capitalize on the meeting in Helsinki by reinforcing the view among his own citizens that he has succeeded in making Russia great again, and demonstrating to Europe that on many issues — from trade to climate change to the Iran nuclear cord — its interests align more closely with Moscow than Washington."






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Sunday 15. July
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- Trump Shakes Up NATO, but Eastern European Allies Aren't Stirred
(Time - 13. July)
“Everywhere you look there are these dire predictions: ‘It’s the end of the Western world,’ and all that,” Toomas Hendrik Ilves, who served as President of Estonia from 2006 to 2016, told me (Time's Simon Shuster) on Tuesday over dinner in Tallinn, his nation’s capital. “I’m not worried about NATO.”

- Anxiety in Estonia as Trump, Putin to Meet
(VOA)



- US Non-Recognition Policy and Crimea – Russian Misrepresentations and Baltic Truths
by Paul Goble
(Window on Eurasia)
"Three US senators, Marco Rubio, Bob Menendez and Rob Portman, have called for Washington to promulgate a policy of “the non-recognition” of Moscow’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea and to model it on American non-recognition policy regarding the Soviet occupation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania."



- Baltic states awarded International Peace of Westphalia Prize
(Deutsche Welle | Latvian Broadcasting)
"German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier … highlighted the Baltics' strategic importance for the bloc's unity against threats from Russia. Addressing the leaders of the three tiny northern European nations, he said "They know: only together we are strong... We need each other as partners and friends. That is their and our conviction. Our joint hope remains that this will not be forgotten on the other side of the Atlantic.”
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"Jost Springensguth, the award's co-founder, said that after travelling to the three countries, it was clear "that they have become a stable element in Europe. Within 20 years they have made such a firm commitment to independence, to freedom and have chosen a path to democracy, that we want to recognize these worthy prize winners, which fit exactly to our times. And especially in Europe's current situation one cannot send a better signal."
—



- Europe’s Dependence on the U.S. Was All Part of the Plan
(Politico)
"The open, liberal world order we know today was built in the wake of World War II and expanded after the collapse of the Soviet Union. By design, it is led by the United States; by design, it ensures permanent U.S. military hegemony over Eurasia while uniting Europe under the U.S.’ protection. The goal of this American grand strategy is to prevent any single power from dominating the region and turning on the United States and its allies.”
—
"Four hundred thousand American men lost their lives in the European theaters of the First and Second World Wars. (American fatalities in all of the other 20th-century conflicts—including Vietnam, Korea and the Persian Gulf—do not total one-quarter of that number.) Our postwar statesmen were neither weak nor incompetent. They were the architects of the greatest foreign policy triumph in U.S. history."



- Nearly entire Gulf of Finland overrun with blue-green algae
(Yle)
"Almost the entire Gulf of Finland has been infested with cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, according to monitoring information obtained by the Finnish Environment Institute, SYKE."






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Russia
“Trust No One"
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- Russia’s Alternate Internet
(New York Magazine)
"Russia has nearly completed an alternative to the Domain Name System — the common “phone book” of the internet that translates numerical IP addresses to readable text like “Amazon.com” and “NYMag.com.” When implemented, the DNS alternative could separate Russia and its allies from the rest of the connected internet — a possibility that, however remote, has experts worried about a “balkanization” of a global network. …"




- Russian ambassador: Trump made ‘verbal agreements’ with Putin
(Washington Post | The Hill)
“Important verbal agreements” were reached at the Helsinki meeting, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, told reporters in Moscow Wednesday, including preservation of the New Start and INF agreements, major bilateral arms control treaties whose futures have been in question. Antonov also said that Putin had made “specific and interesting proposals to Washington” on how the two countries could cooperate on Syria."
—

"What we know about what Trump and Putin agreed to. … For two hours on Monday, President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in private, with only interpreters there to hear their conversation. No aides, no media — just the two leaders and their translators, discussing who knows what."

- Why Trump Is Getting Away With Foreign-Policy Insanity
(Foreign Policy)
"The only people who can stop his sucking up to Russia have lost all their credibility."

- Donald Trump betrayed his country in Helsinki. It wasn’t the first time
by Lucian K. Truscott IV
(Salon)
"Trump asked for Russia’s help to get elected, and Putin confirmed it while standing right next to him. The only question remaining to be answered after Trump’s dishonorable performance in Helsinki is how many Americans will be indicted for conspiring with agents of Russian intelligence to steal the election of 2016."

- Trump Has Trapped Himself Into Cracking Down on Russia
by Alina Polyakova
(The Atlantic)
"Earlier this month, the Senate also passed, 97–2, a motion to support nato. Some Congressional members are now considering new initiatives that would make it impossible for the U.S. president to pull out of the alliance."

- NATO hits back at President Trump's Montenegro World War III remarks
(Deutsche Welle)
"A NATO official told Germany's DPA news agency that Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty was "unconditional and iron-clad," reaffirming that "an attack on one is an attack on all."



- Interview: President Vladimir Putin
Chris Wallace
(Fox News video 16. July)
[Outstanding interview questions by Mr. Wallace.]



- Trump has Done More than Collude with Putin: He’s Helped Kremlin Leader Destroy Post-1945 World
by Paul Goble
(Window on Eurasia)



"Europe fears Helsinki summit will embolden Kremlin, weaken transatlantic unity."

"Newspapers declare Trump a traitor after Helsinki summit"

"It is high time to move on from the realization that the EU can no longer count on the United States as a security guarantor and a reliable political and economic partner to actual policy proposals on how to address this challenge."

"Trump's Helsinki Bow To Putin Leaves World Wondering: Why?"



- Long-time Soviet interpreter Pavel Palazhchenko puts the Trump-Putin meeting in historical context
(Meduza)
“… Pavel Palazhchenko, who served as a interpreter for General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze. Palazhchenko participated in many similar bilateral summits in the late 1980s. … starting with Geneva in November 1985 and ending with Bush [in Moscow] in July-August 1991. In total, there were 10 summits."



- Guns, Sex, And A 'Flight Risk': Behind The Charges Against Maria Butina
(RFERL | Time)
"A woman charged with carrying out a years-long conspiracy to work covertly in the United States as a Russian agent was ordered to remain jailed by a federal magistrate judge ahead of her trial after prosecutors insisted she was a flight risk in a salacious 29-page court filing.”
--
"It was the latest twist in the case of Mariia Buttina, a 29-year-old recent graduate of American University, who prosecutors say lived a double life by using sex and a love of guns to infiltrate American political organizations, like the NRA, in order to advance Moscow’s agenda.”
—
"The court filing, which presented new details on the case that was first made public on Monday, alleged Butina secretly communicated with Russian intelligence operatives and Kremlin-linked billionaires while simultaneously cultivating links with right-wing activists and Republican Party members."
—

- Maria Butina case looks bad for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher
(Salon) 
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., called the charges against Butina “bogus.” … For his part, Rohrabacher admits to having dinner with Butina and a visiting delegation from Russia back in 2015. … Rohrabacher has been connected to various figures in the Mueller investigation – he once took a meeting organized by the now-indicted Paul Manafort and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, two pivotal figures in the investigation."

- Inside the Russian Campaign to Infiltrate the NRA and Help Elect Trump
(Rolling Stone)
"The FBI is now investigating whether (Alexander) Torshin, the current deputy governor of the Russian central bank, illegally funneled cash to the NRA to support the election of Donald Trump …”
—
"The notion that the flag-waving NRA of Eddie Eagle has allied itself with the Russian bear, and the government of former KGB colonel Vladimir Putin, can be hard to fathom. But an investigation by Rolling Stone establishes deeper ties between the NRA and Russia than previously reported. The record reveals this union was the product of a sophisticated Russian influence campaign nearly a decade in the making. By November 2016, Torshin greeted Trump’s election victory as a foregone conclusion, specifically pointing to his and the president-elect’s joint connection to the NRA. “This striking personality has fascinated me for a long time,” he tweeted, in Russian. “Was sure of his victory.”

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